Ozon has fused the disparate talents of two of his favorite leading ladies – Charlotte Rampling, with whom he worked on “Under the Sand,” and rising French ingenue Ludivine Sagnier (“Water Drops on Burning Rocks” and “8 Women”) – and their charged interplay is a joy to watch.

Rampling plays brittle, persnickety English mystery writer Sarah Morton, whose creative juices have dried up at the prospect of writing the next installment of her formulaic but popular series of detective novels.

Her publisher, John (Charles Dance), offers her the use of his home in the picturesque and peaceful Luberon, in the South of France, and she’s just started to relax into her surroundings – a glimmer of a self-satisfied smile even playing around her perennially pursed lips – when her contentment is shattered by the arrival of Julie (Sagnier).

Julie is John’s French-born daughter, an insolent, sexually reckless filly who horrifies Sarah by bringing home a different man every night and spending her days lounging around the pool like a mermaid, her long tousled blond hair cascading over her constantly bare breasts.

The two clash titanically, but Ozon cleverly suggests they actually have much in common.

Sarah finds herself increasingly intrigued by her unexpected housemate – her disapproving spying and eavesdropping subtly morphs into a kind of voyeuristic thrill-seeking. Once she opens a file on her laptop called “Julie,” she finds her writer’s block has disappeared – along with many of her inhibitions.

Along with co-writer Emmanuele Bernhein, Ozon – who films Rampling’s startlingly perfect 57-year-old body just as lovingly as Sagnier’s ripe young one – has crafted a contemplative blend of fantasy and reality that illuminates the mysteries of the creative process.

Unfortunately, the clumsy twist in the tail has the effect of deflating much of what’s gone before.